Montenegro

Geography

Montenegro, a jumbled mass of mountains, with a
small coastline along the Adriatic, borders Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and Serbia. It is roughly the size of Connecticut.

Government

Republic. Montenegro, formerly part of Serbia
and Montenegro, gained independence on June 3, 2006.

History

The first inhabitants on the Balkan peninsula
were the ancient people known as the Illyrians. The Slavic people followed
in the 6th and 7th centuries. What is now Montenegro was the Serbian
principality of Zeta in the 14th century. The principality was under the
rule of the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 19th century, though this
mountainous region managed to evade tight Ottoman control. It then became
a principality within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in 1878 achieved
independence. In 1910, Prince Nicholas I proclaimed himself king. During
World War I, Montenegro fought on the side of the Allies and was defeated
by Austro-German forces. Nicholas was forced to flee the country and
Montenegro was annexed to Serbia, then called the Kingdom of the Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes, and renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. After World War II,
Yugoslavia became a Communist republic under Josip Tito. Tito's tight rein
kept ethnic tensions in check until his death in 1980. Without his
pan-Slavic influence, ethnic and nationalist differences began to flare,
and by the 1990s Yugoslavia started to disintegrate in a brutal ten-year
civil war. In the war's aftermath, Serbia and Montenegro were the only two
remaining republics of Yugoslavia, and in Feb. 2003, they formed a
new state, a loose federation called Serbia and Montenegro. The
arrangement was made to placate Montenegro's restive stirrings for
independence and stipulated that Montenegro could hold a referendum on
independence after three years. In May 2003, Filip Vujanovic, a strong
advocate of Montenegrin independence, was elected Montenegro's
president.